AluminiumGermaniumBoronRadium
by PBCiMoA
Summary: Prompt: Mike and Blaine meet at college.
1. AluminiumGermaniumBoronRadium

Not Mine

* * *

The first time Blaine steps onto the Columbia campus he expects to feel disappointed. He expects to feel like he's let himself down once again by caving to his father's wishes regarding his future. He doesn't. For the first time in his life he feels as though the compromise he's reached with his father has actually worked out in his favour.

His mother had talked his father down from his insistence that Blaine go to Harvard (his alma mater) by the time he started high school, to agree to let him choose his own school, provided that school was in the Ivy League...or Stanford. He accepted Columbia with minimal griping and Blaine had pushed from a fine arts minor to his business major, to dual enrolment at Juilliard.

The arrangement is complicated to say the least and even Wes told him he was crazy but it was the only way he could think to make everyone happy. He wasn't prepared to give up his dreams of being a performer and being offered a chance to study at Juilliard was once in a lifetime, but so is Columbia. His friends had told him to just go for Juilliard, he was on a scholarship after all, his father couldn't pull the funding or force him to another school, but it wasn't just the fear of disappointing his parents that made him sign up for his fall classes at Columbia. They had a point. A business degree was imminently more practical to have and it certainly wouldn't hurt his chances later in life.

There was also the fact that he wanted to maintain a good relationship with his parents. The Andersons had never been what anyone would describe as a close-knit family. He had often looked at families like the Duvals and Sterlings and wished for the kind of parents who would demand he come home at least every other weekend and tell them everything that had happened while he'd been away, but he had never doubted that his parents loved him and he had worked hard to make them proud. His parents didn't fully approve of his dreams, but they did support him and had always worked to provide everything he would need to succeed.

When his acceptance and scholarship offer from Juilliard had arrived he had sat down with his parents and explained that he wanted to pursue two degrees. His father had studied his determined expression before telling him that he expected nothing short of excellence. His father had arranged meetings with the admissions offices and counsellors and his mother had arranged a small but stylish two bedroom apartment, midway between the campuses in a building with a doorman because once is too many times for a mother to see her son bruised and bleeding on a hospital bed.

One month into his gruelling schedule Blaine looks up from his sheet music to realize that, for the first time ever, he is alone. He hasn't spoken to his parents apart from sharing his password to allow them access to his grades. The Warblers in his graduating class are busy adjusting to their respective schools and so he has exchanged a few text messages containing mostly pleasantries with them, and the younger and older Warblers had quickly picked up on his state of mild panic and seem to be alternating between trying to comfort him and attempting to talk him out of continuing.

He hasn't actually spoken to anyone outside of a class at either school since his arrival. He is friendly with most of his classmates, but he isn't friends with any of them. His esoteric schedule, the result of attempting to plan two full time enrolments around each other, means he is lucky if he has two classes with the same person.

He flicks through his contacts on the first Saturday night he has found himself with no pressing engagements, having finished every composition, essay, packet and problem he has been handed in his first few weeks, and realises that the only new numbers since he's come to New York (barring the handful of girls he had realised too late had very little interest in discussing Sondheim) were his piano and voice tutors, the professors who had written their numbers on the board during lectures, and his elderly neighbour, a sweet old woman who feeds him home cooked meals in exchange for songs.

He taps out messages to all of the Warblers, apologizing for being distant and receiving instant replies from most, some worried but all understanding. Wes informs him that plans have been made for Thanksgiving in Ohio and his presence is required. Setting his phone back on the table he resolves to get back on top of his schedule enough to maintain at least some semblance of a social life. Mrs Rosenblatt laughs and says she was glad to hear it when he shares his plan with her over Carbonara an hour later.

His plan to get his life worked out to allow some free time is postponed slightly because that Monday is one of his rare but unavoidable double bookings. He sprints from his Music Theory class, almost knocking over a group of three girls on his way to his bike and by the time he slides into the back row the professor is just picking up from the five minute break in the middle of class.

He's focusing on trying to slow his breathing down while not making enough noise to bother his classmates and pulling the correct notebook out of his bag and scanning the board trying to recall exactly what his book had said about Gaussian elimination when a slip of paper slides into view on his desk.

_I can send you notes from the first half if you'd like?_

Looking to his left he finds a boy glancing back at him, without ceasing his typing of notes, with a small smile. His efforts to stop panting are momentarily forgotten, as is the ability to breathe. He had intended to turn to his neighbour and try to convey his gratitude but found himself struck entirely dumb. The boy next to him was not a boy in his class, he was _The Boy_ that Blaine had spent the first month of the class studiously not sitting too close to for fear that distraction would cause his grade in the class to drop.

He had noticed the tall Asian boy the first time he had walked nervously into a linear algebra class he'd been informed was meant for Physics and Chemistry students with the odd Mathematician, but which was the only math credit he could fit into his already bursting schedule. _The Boy_ was tall and lean with kind eyes and a calm smile and was never entirely still. He seemed restless, but not nervous.

_The Boy_ looked back at him with a slightly more amused grin and Blaine nodded rapidly, blushing a bright pink as he turned back to his own notes and attempted to focus on linear equations rather than the fact that he had slid into the seat next to the most attractive man he'd met, late for class, panting, sweaty, and with his hair definitely not up to standard, only to proceed to stare openly at him when offered help.

He managed to keep taking notes, but he knew he'd be revising the chapter again that evening because his mind was miles away; or rather it was only a few inches to his left. The slip of paper appeared on top of his notes again while the professor was methodically wiping the boards clean.

_I will need your email-address if you want the notes._

He blushed again but scribbled the address down before smiling back at him, hoping _The Boy_ would think his discombobulated state was just the product of him being late and rather flustered, rather than identify it as what it was, which was abject mortification at being faced with his crush under those circumstances.

He hadn't even actually spoken to _The Boy_, between his reluctance to sit near him and his constant rushing to get to his next class on time there had been no chance even if he had been able to find his tongue.

When the professor finally stops droning Blaine hastily shoves his things back in his bag and turns to _The Boy_ and suddenly loses his mental filter.

"You are a lifesaver. Seriously thank you. I am naming my firstborn after you. I am late." After kissing the stunned boy on the temple he practically flew out of the lecture hall and onto his bike to meet with his piano tutor, managing to refrain from smacking himself in the face only because he needed his hands to steer on the crowded streets.

In one interaction with _The Boy_, otherwise known as the most perfect being on earth, he had panted, stared, blushed and babbled, and had offered to name his firstborn for him, but neglected to ask his name. His piano tutor laughed at him when he slid to the floor, melting into a miserable puddle of goo next to the beautiful imperial grand, tapping out an ominous tune with his left hand on the low keys.

"Good, an artist needs emotional devastation every once in a while, do try to crawl up on the bench and play me the third movement though, I'm excited to hear what you've done with it."

When Blaine gets home that night there is an email waiting for him with a neat pdf file of notes complete with diagrams and equations that has Blaine convinced that apart from being clever, kind, and unfairly attractive, his crush is clearly some form of magician because Blaine is pretty sure he can't even find a lambda, much less get actual, perfectly aligned matrixes.

He laughs slightly at himself when he finds himself going a little starry eyed at the little bright pink boxes labelled Mike's notes containing added little facts and equations, but not nearly as much as Mrs Rosenblatt laughs when it takes him twice as long as usual to finish off his dinner because he's too busy gushing over Mike. It becomes abundantly clear that he knows very little about the object of his affections when he realises he's just told his neighbour that Mike must have been an early adopter of Gmail considering he'd managed to nab his own, fairly common name as an address because not only does that mean absolutely nothing to the elderly woman, it wasn't actually something he cared about himself until he knew it about Mike.

Mrs Rosenblatt happily listens to him anyway, surreptitiously adding food to his plate when his thoughts get away from him.

(A/N:)  
If you are wondering about the title, that is the effect of having dated a chemist for too long, I sometimes spell things in elements. The chemical symbols spell out Algebra, which is the maths class mentioned. Yes I am a nerd.


	2. CopperTellurium

Not Mine

* * *

Blaine stares at Mike's email address for five minutes when he returns to his own apartment. He has been handed a line of communication to someone he really, really wants to get to know, and using it would definitely quality as making an attempt at acquiring a social life, but he has to remind himself that Mike did not give Blaine his email with any kind of explicit understanding that they were now friends, he did it as the by-product of a good deed in helping a clearly frazzled classmate.

It would be rude to abuse the implied trust of handing out a private email address.

It wouldn't be rude to send a thank you though. It was the polite thing to do. And there couldn't be any harm in inquiring about the obvious magical powers that Mike had utilized to give his notes a better layout than the course book. Mike replies five minutes later with several smileys and a link that just says Latex, which Blaine clicks uncertainly only to be linked to a website explaining some document preparation system called LaTeX and everything looks a little, but not quite like the programming stuff that's been making his head swim from his computer science intro course.

Another email pops up while he's debating whether he has time to learn it because it does look really good, but he really doesn't get code, where Mike apologizes quickly, having apparently realized that he just sent someone an email containing only a link labeled latex, and explains that the Chemistry institution expects all hand ins to be in that format.

They exchange a few more emails in which Blaine does not invite Mike to go for coffee, a little because he doesn't want to come on too strong after not having really attempted to make friends since he was fifteen and stumbling into the Warbler rehearsal room, but mostly because he knows his schedule for the week and asking someone out for coffee before seven in the morning is plain weird, and after six is definitely a date and the last thing he needs is to ask out his first potential friend who is very likely to be straight.

He finds out that Mike is a sophomore chemistry student. He uses huge amounts of emoticons. He likes dancing and robots and he's from Lima, which is so close to Westerville Blaine realizes he may well have seen Mike on the street or in the Lima Bean before without even knowing it.

It takes Blaine half an hour to convince himself he promised himself to balance his schedule better, not abandon it, and sign off to try and focus on the notes given by his piano tutor. The notes have been the same since the start of term they're getting more than a little frustrating. Sergei is more than brilliant and it's an honor to work with him at all, much less to be chosen as one of the students he takes on for one on one tutoring, but Blaine has tried and failed to compose something, anything, that doesn't receive the note 'temperamental', or 'too Italian' for over a month and the old Russian just keeps chuckling to himself.

"I can feel exactly what you feel. If that is what you want, go home, you are done. I am not here to teach you what you already know. You are too Italian, everything you feel you project. You need to be in control. I should feel what you want me to feel, not what you feel. Again!" He's not sure if he struggles more with the concept because he's too emotional to distance himself from his pieces, or because what he wants his audience to feel is happy and he knows Sergei won't accept one bubbly excitable composition after the other.

He has tried to convince himself to make everyone cry but he was stopped barely three bars in by Sergei's booming voice declaring he felt frustrated and guilty and demanding to know why. Blaine tries to take every comment on board and bites his tongue, reminding himself that he has worked his entire life for this opportunity.

The weeks following his commitment to socializing are surprisingly less hectic than the ones before. Reshuffling his workout and homework times to fit in a late sparring session with Tim, the percussionist from his music theory class, instead of his early morning training on his own does wonders for what he's beginning to suspect was the beginnings of cabin fever, and he's managed to sit down and have lunch with someone at least three times a week. Admittedly he still hasn't found time to go to one of the parties he's found himself invited to, but he's happy with his progress nonetheless.

He's even more delighted with his progress with Mike, who is quiet but not reserved and happily responds to each and every email or text Blaine sends, even when they're full of complete nonsense, and gives thoughtful feedback, even when Blaine sends him six very slightly different versions of the latest song he's been working on. Mike has invited him to join him and his friends (who are from Ohio too, but don't go to Columbia) for lunch, but Mondays are not one of the days Blaine has managed to fit in a lunch break so they have yet to actually meet up outside of class.

As if Blaine wasn't enamored enough there is also the incident that almost makes his run his bike into a wall. It's one of the warmer mornings in October and there are plenty of people sitting around on the grass, savoring the last warmth before winter sweeps in. Blaine spots Mike from an almost embarrassing distance, considering his contacts have been bothering him and with his four year old glasses the older boy is very much blurred around the edges and with his back turned. He's with two people, possibly the friends he mentioned. The blonde boy and the short brunette girl are holding mugs, presumably coffee, while Mike dances over the picnic table which only the girl (who may or may not be Rachel) has chosen to actually sit at.

The thing that makes Blaine almost miss the sturdy red brick wall moving toward him is that close up, or closer at least, he can see that Mike doesn't like to dance like people who go out to clubs like to dance, or even like Blaine likes to dance, he likes to dance like the students in the dance class Blaine provides accompaniment for with Tim and a few more guys for one of his ensemble credits like to dance. He manages to force his eyes forward just in time to swerve away from the wall, foot slamming to the ground as he makes a fairly graceless stop.

He shakes himself out of his stupor and takes off again, feeling sure the girl had been watching him but not daring to look back, immensely grateful that Mike at least had been facing away. He groans when he receives a text as he locks his bicycle to the stands outside the history building.

_Are you ok? Rachel said she saw you and you looked distracted._

There was every chance that that meant that Rachel (at least he has confirmed who she was), had shared the fact that Blaine had been too riveted by the arching of Mike's back to see a frankly massive building until he was almost occupying the same space as said building. The mortification was subdued slightly by the conflicting emotions of elation that Mike was looking out for his wellbeing, and confusion that this Rachel girl, whom he had never met, could identify him from a distance, travelling at some speed.

It's already November when Mrs. Rosenblatt's encouragement and Mike's easy smile manage to convince him he needs to reveal his crush on the Asian boy. He spends two days thinking about how he could broach the subject. An email is far too impersonal but he's not sure he can face Mike if the first words he hears from his mouth are a rejection.

The rest of the week he spends gathering the materials for the brilliant plan he developed early Wednesday morning. He tracks down the assistant professor from his intro to chemistry class. The man looks at him as though he's sprouted a second head when he asks for tiny samples of elements and laughs outright when Blaine explains why he wants them but hands them over with very little argument. His next stop is the girl with the homemade bead-necklaces who still sat next to him every week in Ancient Civ, even after he turned down the date she had offered. She coos and pinches his cheeks and readily agrees to help him construct a bracelet.

Jenna lets him into one of the art buildings he's never been in because he isn't taking any fine arts at Columbia, having conceded when his father said he was taking enough of them at Juilliard. The room Jenna leads him to feels hotter than a sauna and judging by the sweat staining her tank top she's already been there awhile.

He watches, mesmerized, as she slowly shapes the glass beads around the little samples of substances he's brought her and listens intently as she teaches him how to braid the thin leather bands. When he looks up from the bracelet, finally happy with it, she grins at him, adding another of her own creations (he counts eight) to the pile on her right.

He has the bracelet in his hand all through his algebra class on Monday, wanting to hand it over with the perfect words, and preferably some of the charm Wes always claimed he had.

What he ends up doing is waiting until he hears people starting to snap books closed before panicking and thrusting the trinket into Mike's hand. "Just…read it when you get home. Or whenever." He dashes out of the room before he does something stupid like kiss the adorably confused look off Mike's face.**  
**

He spends most of Monday night distracting himself with a report on ancient power structures and cursing himself for possibly ruining the closest friendship he's managed to establish in a way where he might not find out for a week.

The next two days are spent in a state of mild panic as his mind runs through all of the mistakes he might have made by handing over the bracelet.

'Read it' isn't very helpful. What if Mike doesn't figure it out?

What if he is confused?

What if he is weirded out by it?

Is it too much?

What if Mike had liked him but now thinks he is strange or even creepy?

He calls David, who has had a girlfriend for almost six years, and listens to him laugh for several minutes before hanging up and calling Wes. Wes tells him it's over the top and cheesy but not any more so than everything else Blaine is likely to do if they do end up dating so it's just as well Mike has been warned. He also says Blaine should probably be prepared to give Mike another clue.

On Thursday he gets an email from Mike with a scanned image of a sketch of the bracelet, complete with arrows captioning all the beads (correctly) and a conclusion (also correct).

**Iodine ThoriumIndiumPotassium YttriumUraniumOxygenRhenium CoppeerTellurium**

**I ThInK YOURe CuTe**

Apart from the sketch there is only one sentence in the email.

_Does this mean you only date guys who are good at cryptic crosswords?_

Blaine does not squeal. He does compose a song which neither Mike nor his piano tutor will ever be hearing if he can help it.


	3. Tellurium AmericumOxygen

_Not Mine_

* * *

_How did you even make that? Who sells periodic element beads? Who sells uranium beads?_

The note is waiting for him on what has become his usual desk when he arrives (the lecturer hasn't even started speaking).

"This girl in my ancient civilizations class makes her own jewelry, beads and all, and I convinced one of the assistant professors to let me have some tiny little samples. Jenna did the actual blowing of the beads around the stuff. She's really nice, you should meet her. Actually oxygen was hardest. I didn't want to cheat and just use air, but even with the oxygen tank I'm sure there's some air in there." Thankfully Professor Layton interrupts at that point, before Blaine can ramble further.

Blaine has always been under the apparently false impression that he is quite confident around attractive members of the same sex. Mike has cured him of that particular delusion. It was easy to be confident with Jeremiah, who had asked him out, and even Sebastian, because while Blaine did the actual asking out, Sebastian had made no secret of his appreciation of Blaine and his many assets. With Mike he had no real indication that his advances would be welcome, barring the one sentence email that could easily be his way of laughing it off.

Mike does not pass him any more notes during the class and Blaine is almost hyperventilating over having made things awkward with his best friend (in New York) and crush. Mike on the other hand is frustratingly calm and grins down at him as he stands, leaving a sheet of paper on Blaine's desk as he strides out of the room. At first he thinks he's dropped a page of his sheet music, but it's not one of his and it has a pink post it note stuck to it.

_Read it when you get home, or whenever ;)_

With an actual smiley at the end. The sheet music is a little confusing though. At first glance it looks a lot like the Minute Waltz and Blaine is already playing along internally when he notices the half notes throwing of the tempo. It's not the Minute Waltz, and the title admits as much. He's never heard of the title or the composer listed at the top of the page.

Biliteral Overture

Friedman-Bacon

When he gets home he plays the piece, first on his keyboard, then Mrs. Rosenblatt's piano, just to make sure. It still sounds like the Minute Waltz with the tempo all screwed up. He pouts a bit before focusing back on the title, hoping to find a new clue there. He possibly should have just plucked up the courage to admit his crush face to face.

Overture is easy. Kind of. It means prelude, it can be an offer or a proposal, or it could just be a random musical term Mike chose to use. Biliteral. Involving two letters? A proposition in two letters? He wouldn't write it in binary would he?

He might.

Blaine googles binary alphabets and frowns when the 175 notes on the paper fail to split evenly into groups of eight. It takes him a few seconds to google biliteral, and then biliteral + Friedman-Bacon, and then half an hour of reading about Bacon ciphers before he eventually splits them into groups of five and attempts to apply the key. There are no spaces, and at first he gets the order of the as and bs wrong, but he eventually manages to make a sentence out of it.

It would be an honor if you would go with me - M

There is no indication of where Mike wants him to go with him, but there is a date at the bottom of the page, which Blaine's calendar confirms is when he was planning to be packing for his trip back to Ohio for Thanksgiving and he finds that he really doesn't care where.

He picks up his phone and dials Wes's number. Wes does not react with the appropriate level of excitement (the National Geographic channel could do a special on your mating habits Blaine, but at least you haven't tried singing about sex toys in anyone's workplace in a few years), but he does congratulate him which is more than David does (I still can't believe you made him a puzzle bracelet, that is just hilarious). Sebastian is actually mildly enthusiastic, in his own way (wow, he just took your crazy and ran with it, sounds like a keeper, if it doesn't work out my dorm door is always open, or if he's as hot as you say he is, the door is still open if it does work out). Blaine decides to stop calling people after Bas though, resolving to giggle over it with Jenna next time he sees her instead.

The next time he sees Mike isn't Monday. Mike finds him in the library in the history building on Wednesday afternoon and stands across the table from him, shifting awkwardly for several minutes while Blaine scribbles notes about the Kingdom of Kush. Blaine looks up when his knees hit the leg of the table as he sits down and beams up at him. His smile falls slightly when Mike slides a notebook over the table to him instead of responding to his (possibly over-) enthusiastic greeting.

I'm not quiet. I'm mute. I didn't want to tell you because you look at me like I'm normal but if you agree to come to the fall formal with me you'll have to find out.

"You want me to go to the formal with you? I mean of course you're not abnormal. I mean technically you're abnormal if you define normal as being the norm because you are in the minority but to be fair if you really want to be the norm you get a lot of bonus points for being Asian. Although you are unfairly attractive and really good at dancing and highly intelligent so you do kind of deviate from the norm in a lot of ways. I mean um...I would love to go to the fall formal with you?"

Mike smiles at him and leans across the table, planting a soft kiss on his lips before pulling away and disappearing between the high shelves.

It takes him twenty minutes on Monday night to shift his schedule again to accommodate the ASL lessons he finds on one of the notice boards in the one of the Liberal Arts buildings and throws himself into it with gusto. He spends at least an hour every night for the almost two weeks leading up to the formal attempting to get his hands to remember the movements and trying them out on a girl who is studying abroad in Belgium over Skype because it's really hard to find people who are willing to practice sign language with him at one in the morning.

They've decided to meet before the formal because Mike says the portions are tiny and they should get food before and Blaine isn't going to turn down what amounts to a date before the date. He spots Mike already seated in a booth in the pub two blocks down from the venue and slides in across from him.

When he sees Mike's face fall at his silent greeting he immediately panics, trying to figure out if he signed it wrong or if he said something to offend him.

"I'm sorry, was that wrong? Did you...I noticed you signing with the professor last week and I thought it must be kind of a hassle for you to have to write everything down and if I learned ASL it might make things easier." Mike sets his pen to the notepad he always carries with him and Blaine forgets his panic for a few seconds to register that Mike can actually write legibly upside down.

_I like listening to you talk._

Blaine is slightly stunned by the words scrawled across the small notepad, his mind scrambling to formulate a response. Mike doesn't set his pen down and Blaine waits for him to continue. The taller boy sets the tip of the pen to the page three times, seemingly second guessing himself before scratching out another sentence.

_I kind of wanted to teach you to sign._

"Wow. I would love for you to teach me."

Sam and Rachel join them just as the check comes and Rachel immediately demands to know everything about him in a mildly frightening tone, starting a conversation that lasts them through the entire three course meal, pausing only for speeches, and Mike holds his hand under the table throughout so when Rachel demands his presence at a place called Callbacks, where all the NYADA students apparently hang out, he just smiles and nods.

Sam is mild mannered and surprisingly relaxed considering he's Rachel's date. He lives with Rachel, but they're not dating, and he's apprenticing with a photographer and taking evening classes at a community college.

All three of them went to McKinley (although Sam was only there for his sophomore year), and Mike knew Sam from football and Rachel from one of his dance classes and reintroduced them when he heard Sam needed a place in New York and Rachel needed a new roommate.

When Mike walks him to his door at three AM his head is swimming. The dinner had been nice and Rachel certainly hadn't let any awkward silences fall and there were plans made for meeting up during Thanksgiving, Rachel and Mike were going to go meet him in Westerville, Sam's family was in Kentucky so he wouldn't be joining them. The dancing after the dinner had been spectacular though. Blaine had gotten all dressed up and gone dancing with a boy he really liked at a fancy party and no one had shot him any kind of disgusted look (well there had been that one guy but he turned out to be offended by Blaine's bright blue socks).

Blaine likes scrapbooking, always has. He tends not to advertise it as most of his friends, being teenage males, like to tease him mercilessly for it, but it isn't something he actively hides either. He does blush heavily however, when Mike comes over to welcome him home after Thanksgiving and finds the newly started scrapbook he has dedicated to their relationship, and hurriedly changes the subject, hoping Mike will be less inclined to call the hobby stalkerish than Jeremiah had been.

Two days later Mike is over again and pulls the scrapbook off the shelf and hands Blaine the slip of paper with Mike's offer of help and Blaine's scribbled email-address from back in late September. Blaine blushes and tucks it carefully in with the rest of the pictures and tickets and miscellaneous objects he hasn't found the perfect place for yet.

"You have no idea how embarrassed I was the first time we spoke."

_Why?_

And Mike looks legitimately confused, like he can't understand how Blaine could possibly have been anything less than confident.

"I told you I was crushing on you before that, although obviously I didn't know how perfect you actually are. Do you realize how mortified I was when I realized it was our first real interaction and I was all mussed and gross and not to mention late?"

_You weren't gross._

"Sweet, but I was. I was covered in sweat and my hair was all out of sorts."

_And you were trying to control your breathing. You closed your eyes and leaned you head back and sort of arched up. You were wearing one of those ungodly tight polos and there was clinging and just all kinds of flexing going on._

"Oh my..."

_The girl across the aisle dropped her pen and hit her chin on the desk picking it up. I have seen porn less erotic than that moment. Actually strike that, I have yet to see any porn more erotic than that moment. If I didn't proof read my notes before sending them off you would have seen some not exactly PG examples of more fun ways I could make you sweat._

"Wow." Blaine blushes and it feels a little like when Bas used to say similar things, except Mike is blushing too and that somehow makes it really sweet. Mike holds up a finger, motioning for him to wait, and ducks out into the kitchen, rummaging in his bag and pulling out his now familiar sketch pad.

_This is how I remember that day._

He flips it open to a page close to the middle and Blaine reminds himself of the new pad he'd been meaning to give him, having noticed the current one running out of clean pages. The image startles him slightly because he's seeing himself through Mike's eyes.

The boy on the page has his nose and his eyebrows and all the other little things Blaine has always been a little bit insecure about, but on him they look beautiful. His shoulders are drawn back and his head has fallen onto the backrest behind him exposing a long throat leading down to collarbones only just peeking out from an unbuttoned polo. His eyes are closed and his mouth is hanging open and his curls have long since broken free of their gel prison, although they are thankfully not the frizz he used to see in the mirror every morning in high school.

_Best class ever. Although can we not name our firstborn after me? I'm already a junior and having the same name as your dad is all kinds of lame._

Blaine freezes and tries to read the note but can really only focus on the words 'our firstborn' printed, neat as ever, in Mike's handwriting across the notepad in his hand. Mike clearly notices his shocked look and scrambles to amend his statement just as the pad is knocked from his hand and his back hits the wall, Blaine rising up on his toes and pulling him in for a kiss. He breaks away momentarily to speak. "We're not having kids until we're at least twenty six." Mike has a dumbfounded look on his face as he nods rapidly as Blaine attacks his neck. "Also we're going to take this slow and not rush into anything, right?" Another nod. "That being said, I think I love you." Mike dives in for another kiss.

* * *

(A/N:) I am deeply unhappy with this but it's not getting better, it's getting worse so I'm posting it now because I have to hand in my lab work in four hours and I can't focus on properly proofing it.

It has been way too long since I wrote something fictional.


End file.
